Rua Minx (aka Donna Huanca) in Prague

see ya at the MFAH tonight! Pics tomorrow!

John the Third and Red Hot the First

American Wandering Club represents! The first Star(b/f)ucks show for the MFAH is this Saturday, and local brain scrambler John the Third will be spinning in the gigantic Mies van der Rohe Gallery with Nectarine at the museum's building at the corner of Montrose and Bissonnet. You know, the one with the big silver guys and the red dinosaur out front. Enjoy some artwork and check out the beats of this computer junkie, screwtape releaser and former Lake Jackson kid!

Frank Rose = Summer Santa

not this Frank.

this Frank!

Frank will be Santa tonight,
sweating his ass off in a red velvet suit with sweaty white trim,
come take things from him!


Contemporary Arts Museum press dude Jim Mulvihil sez:

Hey there,

What else are you going to do on a rainy Friday? Come to the CAMH tonight for some cheap drinks ($2 high-quality beers) and check out the art. It’s “Xmas in July” so our man St. Nick is coming to give away copies of the Factory Girl DVD, some good vinyl from BackSpin Records, subscriptions to ArtsHouston, gifts from the Museum Store, exhibition catalogues, and so on. Also, DJs Majora y Minora are driving in from Austin to man the turntables.

As always, admission is free. The party is 8-11. Hope to see you there!

Jim

Blow Job

Shit-eating grin threatens to swallow Robert Chaney's head

The Chronicle is all about the new Red Hot show, although I believe this article counts as a sex act, not journalism.

Clyfford Still style hack Marilyn Biles takes the joke so far, I couldn't have made fun of Shelby Hodge's article better myself:

"I just walked in the room and already my eyes are bulging."

RIP IBP

Infernal Bridegroom Productions, housed at the Axiom in the warehouse district for the last few years, has fallen into economic disarray and possibly insolvency, although I would not rule out a deus ex machina- or another org. snatching up their name and history... Here's an obit from Artshouston.

There are so many reasons, they are all the same

The Hip Hop Project (1), 2001

The Hispanic Project (1)

The Ohio Project (8)

#7 from The Skateboarders Project

#4 from The Yuppie Project

The Ohio Project (7)

Nikki S. Lee, ‘The Wedding (3)

aka Nikki S. Lee

"Who is the real Nikki S. Lee, her admirers would like to know. a.k.a. Nikki S. Lee won't answer this question. What she started in her photos, she carries to an extreme in this clever, imaginative, and exceedingly humorous documentary film: a constant play of identities. The filmmaker so cryptically includes the art business, the jet set, the film world in her self-presentation, that even reality becomes unreal, and in the seemingly documentary moments when the artist speaks seriously about herself, you suspect it's reality's last hold. That's a mistake. Because no certainty remains unshaken in this work."

-Christoph Terhechte

The artist without an identity comes to the city without an image tomorrow July 26th for a screening of her new film aka Nikki S. Lee at 7:00pm at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The museum is free, so use it as an excuse to check out the new Chaney the Oil Man showcase of the best of contemporary Asian art before taking in the film. The artist herself will be there to introduce the film and speak about her work. In her photographs and films the stereotypes so essential to the sculptural works in the gallery are dashed through an American alchemy. Lee's demonstrations of the systematic and environmental roots of identity dash not only bigoted Americana, but also the identity politics at play in the porcelain vases of Mao's face or monstrous red plastic dinosaurs housed in the galleries above the theater.

I wonder if the Red Hot show will travel?

DUAL steps out of the dark

DUAL, Tesla

Graff kid and wheatpaste factory DUAL has been one of the few street artists to adjust and flourish when attention shifted from 'traditional' spray paint tags and bombs that have defined the scene (since TAKI 183 in 1968) to the offshoot 'street art' that has grown immensely in popularity in the past decade. The 'street art' thing, as purported by sites like Wooster Collective and Streetsy, is a much more arty culture than taggers, with more loners who believe they are defining their career than crews trying to maintain territory.

MEAT VERB, Guernica

Still associated with the all-city MEAT-VERB work that blankets the inner loop, DUAL has expanded his approach to include silkscreen and handpainted wheatpastes as well as stickers. With his new venture DUALSTREETS.com the artist strikes out into sales- where Houstonians Give Up, YAR and FAILURE have excelled, but more traditional crews Aerosol Warfare and Graveyard have struggled. As the urban population is set to double (from 4,700,000 to 11,100,000) in Houston in the next two decades; expect the environment to change rapidly with it. Hell, kids may be able to bomb commuter trains if they ever build that friggin' rail down Richmond; and they'll look up to the examples set before them today.

Tonight! Free!

Nude, 1927

Ansel Adams, 1943

The Houston Center for Photography presents a free screening of filmmaker Ian McCluskey's Eloquent Nude: The Love and Legacy of Edward Weston tonight at 7:00 pm at 1441 West Alabama. Call (713) 529-4755 for more information.

Cloud, Death Valley, 1938

"Released by NW Documentary Arts Media, this film shares the story of Charis Wilson and her experiences with Edward Weston. Through interviews and reenactments, the film presents a story of love and collaboration, of travel and adventure, of creative expression and an inside look at the making of Modern American photography.”

DEBRIS: Kiss My Ass

Yue Minjun, Postmodern Garden, 2006

August is a dead spot in the calendar year of art in Houston, but there are a few good things that slip through the cracks and try to make it work, cussin’ the sweat and the Texas heat and mosquiters- David Allen Coe anyone? Don’t forget that the Museum of Fine Arts is free on Thursdays and open until 9 pm; their Red Hot: Asian Art Today exhibit comes with blasting AC and a fine collection of twisted pop icons not recommended for viewing on acid, for fear of a bad trip. Between the candy red portraits by Feng Zhengjie, the wide-eyed paranoia-inducing paintings of Yue Minjun and a giant Tyrannosaurus by Sui Jianguois; I wouldn’t want to chance it. The whole explosion of Asian exhibits in Houston galleries is stunning, with no less than 8 openings in July for group shows from across the Pacific Rim. Rumor is that the MFAH pursued galleries to interest them in showing the work, a bit fishy but not as bad as the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco who released joint press releases with a gallery selling the same artist’s work they had on exhibit at the time.

Saturday August 4^th The Mexican Arsenal presents Chiahui Ome at Commerce Street Artists’ Warehouse, a multimedia monstrosity touted “for the whole family”. With Cuallitepetl indigenous music, poetry from around the world, traditional Aztec dancing by Danza Azteca Tlaloc and two other dance companies, all three galleries and possibly elsewhere will be swarming with performers. Representing the worldwide influences of sub-USA culture, Polynesian, Ecuadorian, Guatemalan, African and Mexican food will be on hand for grubbing in the sun. Look for artwork by Tina Hernandez, Skeez 181 and Lizbeth Ortiz among others.

Patrick Phipps, Sketch

Diverseworks’ The Real (art) World is off and running (not that I can find the live web feed on their website) and this August 11^th Mindy Kober, Keijiro Suzuki, Patrick Phipps and Rachelle Vasquez will open their doors to show what they have spent the last month making in their residency studio space.

Amy Blakemore, JK

The new curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Toby Kamps, joins the crew with his first stab at Texas art in Nexus Texas this fall. Working with Valerie Cassel Oliver and Paola Morsiani, the three have been scouring the state for “maverick pride, go-go entrepreneurship, and cultural blending.” Unfortunately the choices seem to be a bit conservative to me; don’t expect this show to travel. Here’s the list: Sterling Allen, Cauleen Smith and Michael Smith from Austin, Roberto Bellini, Justin Boyd, Augusto di Stefano and Gary Sweeney from San Antonio, Amy Blakemore, Leslie Hewitt, Lauren Kelley, El Franco Lee II and George Smith from Houston, Margarita Cabrera from El Paso and some bitches from Dallas too.

just so you know

A special offer from Free Press Houston...


"$150 *** 1/4 page black and white ad for august. local arteeeests only.."

No Skeleton Armies, Please

Pics from the new show at the joanna!


Hanging out in the backyard with Cody Ledvina and Brian Rod

Resident bird killer (I saw him with a white dove in his mouth, Cody and Brian saved the bird)

Treon Rick, aka YAR!







Eric Pearce, No Plans for the next 100 Years

Francis Giampietro's Zeppelins

Nick Meriwether's video installed in the wall of the bathroom- and a glimpse of a bedroom with an unnamed painting glancing back

Cody Ledvina and Brian Rod

details from Clinic, by Michael Bise

haunted townhomes

The 'ol Jefferson Davis Mental Hospital has been rehabbed into townhouse-style two story apartments for artists and low income housing, artist Derek Shumate just got a sweet place up there. The great view of downtown sure made up for the squirrelly backwater streets on downtown's north corridor, there are rumors of a creepy junkyard on Elder Street full of toughs living under the tangle of freeway overpasses and Houston's old trainyards- that I'm glad I didn't run into. After all the rumors of poltergeists, satanic seances and souls tortured by the state's mental health professionals I didn't want to set foot in the place, but I stopped by the most famous haunted building in the city last Saturday for an opening. It was packed but it wasn't worth taking pics... I went and hung out with Derek and Betsy Askew instead.

great view from the parking lot, eh?

A mental hospital named after the president of the Confederacy?
Seems oddly appropriate...

Picture of a guy taking pictures of the skyline...

Sunset over Derek's balcony

poster by B*Kay

They stripped the place down to the supporting beams and made it all new and hip with exposed pipes and high ceilings and shit...

Creepy blood (?) stains on the stairs...

poster by OBEY (MLK!)

Betsy Askew

Print by YAR

Sterile, creepy hallways- a little of The Shining, a little Francisco Studios (with less urine odor)

Nice roof for a party! Derek and Betsy being cute...

Too many skyline pics...

Who's that ugly bastard?

"The fire department next door was constructed in 1968 on another section of City Cemetery. During a maintenance project in the mid-1980s, human remains were unearthed by the fire department and City Cemetery was re-discovered. There is indication that maintenance crews may have desecrated and looted some graves" from Lone Star Spirits

Then we went to a karaoke party for Becca and James' birthdays!

Can you tell what song they're singin'?